I was going to start off by saying ‘Last year…’, but I just did a quick check and the text reads, “First published – February 2013”, so that’s two years ago. Two years ago. Already. Already the first month of the new year over. Just like that! Sigh!

But, as usual, I digress. Two years ago, a poem of mine was selected for an international anthology called, “For Rhino in a Shrinking World”, edited by poet Harry Owen. Recently, we were informed about a lovely review that came out in which my poem was mentioned. Some of my friends have requested me to share the poem. Now being the good friend that I am, how can I not oblige?

So here it is. My poem, “The Rhino Speaks.” And below, the link to the review.

THE RHINO SPEAKS

The Rhino Speaks

Sit down,
o stranger-with-a-gun,
and let me talk to you.
Before you render me
one with the dust again,
you must know me.

Did you know,
for example,
that in my next life
I would like to be me again?

What do you see
when you see me?
Am I only this lock of matted hair
upon my nose?
But I am so much more;
if only you would open your eyes
and look.
These wrinkled folds of skin
hold ancient secrets of this land;
of those who walked before
and how it came to be.
The dust of the Kalahari,
the sand of the Sahara,
even the seeds of the acacia tree
and drops of great Savannah rain,
all live within
these wrinkled folds of skin.
The Congo
and the Nile
flow from each eye;
these eyes hold memories
of this land
where my family,
once in plenty
and in multitudes,
roamed wild,
free
and in peace –
before you came,
o stranger-with-a-gun.

Yes.
I should like to come back as me
in my next life
and the life after that.
But for that,
you have to let me live.
and thrive
and just be.

What will you tell your children,
o stranger-with-a-gun,
when I am gone?
Will you build monuments in my likeness
and name parks after me?
You cannot grind my bones for bread
or use my hide for designer shoes,
belts
and bags.
You cannot drink my blood
and yet you spill it,
o stranger-with-a-gun.

I am not scared of you,
you know.
I am scared for you.
Your scarring,
warring,
killing ways
will one day,
swallow you whole.

Kill me now,
for I know that
that is what you intend to do.
You are not stronger than me;
Simply blood-thirsty
and greedy.

I just know,
that in my next life,
I would like to be me again.
Yes.
I should like to return
again
and again
and again
until the last gunshot
has felled me to the ground.

But imagine,
o stranger-with-a-gun,
if in my next life,
I should come back as you…
and
you
as
me.

(An outpouring of grief and outrage over the unspeakable violence and heartbreaking massacre of over 120 children in Peshawar’s Military School on 16th December, 2014)

#IndiawithPakistan #PeshawarAttacks

Sob #1

I walk under a canopy
of hatred
and on a carpet of bodies.
The songs I hear
are the screams
of children,
hungry,
wounded,
dying
and dead.

We live amongst beasts
and everyday is
Armageddon.
I could lay down
with lions
and feel safer.

There is no merciful god.
There is mythology.
In different tongues
and forms
and faiths
all expounding one essential lie —
that you don’t matter,
that your existence is not valid
if you are not one of them,
and therefore,
you don’t deserve to live.

The human condition
is putrid.
Today
the Earth
is oozing blood
from all its pores
and there are empty,
bleeding,
sobbing wombs
lying about in disarray.
The sky bleeds
and the rivers hide
as ugly beasts
thump their chests
and howl at the weeping stars,
dancing around the bodies
of massacred innocents.
Promises,
first loves,
and life-dreams
snuffed out
in this macabre reality show
called life.

And what of us?
We are wounded zombies
glued to the images
being played out in front of us.
We’ve lost our voices.
We’ve lost our senses.
We’ve lost the remote.

Sob #2

Knock, knock.
Ummm…
hel…hello?!?

I don’t know where You live,
whether
it’s in Mount Kailash
or Vaishnodevi
or Jerusalem,
Mecca,
the Vatican City
or in this wonderful sounding place
called
Heaven.
I don’t know
if I’ll find you in my mother’s
puja room
or simply inside my heart,
because that’s a bit difficult to believe
since my
heart
and
head
have been at war
for as long as I remember…

You see,
my head sometimes says
that Your time on Earth
is up
and You had to move on to Mars now,
and then You’ll go
to Jupiter
and Saturn
and so on and so forth.
If that’s true,
I’ve gotta say,
Your timing kinda sucks.
Then,
at other times,
my head says
You’ve gone back to
where we got unicorns,
tooth fairies
and hobbits from.
Then in that case,
this won’t matter…

But,
just in case You are there,
that tiny,
infinitesimal chance,
that You are indeed
the Harbinger of day,
the Maker of moons,
the Grand Perfumer,
the Master Builder,
just in case You are all that
the screaming multitudes
say You are,

I would like to,
very respectfully ask,
what the fuck just happened?

Sob #3

Shhh! Little child!
Be quiet,
don’t say a word!
Just lower your eyes
and whisper the great names of God.

No little child,
don’t ask me questions!
I can’t answer them,
knowledge is not your right.
Just lower your eyes
and whisper the great names of God.

ABC’s are not for you
and you can’t play with numbers,
you can’t play with toys.
You can’t love your neighbours,
and must never ever sing!
Dancing is for the devil.
Just lower your eyes
and whisper the great names of God.

You mustn’t reach for the stars
or stare at the moon,
the grass is not meant to be played on.
Don’t listen to the birds
or feed stray pups.
Just lower your eyes
and whisper the great names of God.

And when you are shot
in the back of your head
or right in the middle of your chest,
the stars you quietly wished upon
will fade,
the grass you secretly touched
will soak your blood,

and your eyes will be closed,
your voices stilled.

Sob #4

The silence in my house
this morning
after I sent my boys to school
was not of the usual
shoulder-relaxing,
tension-exhaling
kind.
The shouts of
‘I love you!’
and
‘Have an awesome day!’
hung about in the air longer
than usual,
and yet the silence
was deafening,
almost oppressive.
My daily desire
for a cup of tea
and the newspaper
was lying comatose
under the knowledge
that across the border,
my sisters’
wombs are bleeding
and they are thrashing about
in pain
at the forever silences
that now hang from
every corner
of every room,
resting on windowsills
and living in beautiful faces
frozen in photographs.

Their pain
cripples me.
The stilled voices
deafen me.
And the handfuls of Earth
are a burden
on my soul.

No no!
Oh no you don’t!
Don’t you dare look away
when I use these words!
My mouth is
NOT
what needs washing.

Tits.
Ass.
Cunt.

Look me in the eye
as I say these words aloud
and use them
to label pieces of myself;
these bit parts
that your eyes
have undressed
and invaded
over
and over
again
and again.
These parts which
you have ogled,
grabbed,
groped
and manhandled
for centuries
as if by some divine right
accorded you
by your gender.

Your gender.
That little ugly appendage
that hangs between your legs
and controls your eyes
your hands
and worst of all
your thoughts
and actions.
Your gender.
Which makes you better than us.
Your gender.

My gender.
My bit parts.
My tits my ass my cunt.

Amazing.
The power we carry in our bit parts.
Your penis has crowned you king
since time immemorial.
It has made you lord and master.
The almighty
and all-powerful.
El Supremo.
Your penis has allowed you
your superiority.
It has allowed you
to lay down laws,
pass judgement
and declare ownership.
Ownership of me,
my mothers,
my sisters,
my daughters,
the world.

So smallandugly,
Yetsopowerful.

And what about my bit parts?
My tits,
my ass,
my cunt?
Parts that have been used
to make
and birth nations.
Parts that have been used
to feed generations.
Parts upon which I have rested
my tired
weary soul
while silently cradling
the weight of the world
in my arms.

My bit parts.
These pieces
of my anatomy.
My biology.

These parts
which have started wars
launched ships
inspired poets
and painters
and songwriters,
and given glorious pleasure
to a few select chosen ones,have returned the sexy favourto me too.

The trouble started
when I gave them a voice
and they started to speak.
Mytitsmyassmycunt.

And today they voice their protest,
growl out war cries
and sing battle songs.

No more
will they be virgin territories
claimed
by conquering marauders;
no more the spoils of war;
no more the only things about me
that you see.

My tits.
My ass.
My cunt.

Mine.
All mine.
Not yours.

Not yours to stare at.
Not yours to sniff at.
Not yours to touch,
feel
or grab at.

(Something I wrote on FB a while back, almost two months ago…have been meaning to put it into the blog.)

I liked it better when the world wasn’t at my fingertips. When a certain amount of ignorance was bliss. When I didn’t know what was happening where and when to whom and how. Yes. I liked the ‘old days’ better.

Ostrich with head in sand syndrome did you say? Perhaps. But I don’t see how it’s better watching innocent children being blown to bits in the name of righting wrongs and self-preservation, and not doing anything about it. I don’t see how it’s enough to know, in gruesome detail, about the rapes of babies, toddlers and children at the hands of their care-givers, and just turn the page of the newspaper and carry on reading. I can’t fathom why certain people in society are put on pedestals, worshipped, followed and feted — for what?? Their fake, sculpted noses; their fake, rubber breasts; their fake, injected asses and the amount of clothes that spill out of their closets.

There are companies and associations and federations that spend obscene amounts of money on men to chase or hit different sized balls, while everyday children are dying of malnutrition, war wounds and lack of clean water. There are people who charge the earth to make movies, appear in ads, cut ribbons and dance at weddings and yet, the children of a lesser god struggle to just stay alive.

Power corrupts. Evil rules. And we all know this. And we carry on. We all just fucking carry on.

How have we not turned mad? How are all keeping calm and carrying on? Yes, we sign petitions, go on protest marches, indulge in drawing-room debates and write long, rambling status updates or blogposts. Like this one.
So is my conscience clear then?

I got this picture and the following write-up from the “Growing Bolder” page on FB. What an inspiration. I really need to change my though process…

‘Phyllis Sues started her own own fashion label at 50, became a musician and learned Italian and French in her 70’s, took tango and trapeze at 80 and walked into her first yoga class at 85. At 91, she has a CD on iTunes, writes for the Huffington Post, dances and performs regularly and jumps rope and practices Yoga daily. “If you don’t train the body every day it withers. If you don’t train the mind everyday, you lose it. Yoga is a wakeup call to every cell in your body. I live to do yoga and I do it to live.” ‘

This will make an excellent bio-pic one day. These two might even inspire a novel or film. Because they’re amazing. She’s amazing.

When I started this blog, it was with the intention of sharing news, views and reviews that I found interesting, informative and/or was high on the feel-good factor. The story of Sarah Patricia Jones and Nicolas Espinosa, better known as Paddy and Nico, definitely scores top marks in the last category.

Dancer Paddy is an 80-year-old widow who took up salsa dancing after her husband died. They were living in Spain. She continued to stay on there even after his death. She found Nico’s dance academy and decided to pursue a dance form that she had never learnt. Soon they became a team and were performing the most amazing dance routines. In 2009, the entered and won the Spanish dance competition, ‘Tu Si Que Valse’. In 2014, they entered “Britain’s Got Talent” and won the hearts of the judges and audience alike. Judge Amanda Holden used her golden button to send the duo straight to the semi-finals.

While rehearsing for the semis, Paddy reported cracked a rib and informed the organisers that she would have to pull out. Luckily, she was given the all-clear and went on to not only compete in the semi-final round, but going through to the finals. They finished 9th overall.

Watching Paddy and Nico dance is a joyful experience. You can’t help but be amazed and awestruck and crazily happy at the same time. Paddy is an inspiration. Such a cliched term, but that’s what makes it oh-so-true.

I’ve put the links to the “Britain’s Got Talent” videos available on Youtube in this write-up so that whenever I feel like I can’t do anything and that I’m worthless and fat and over the hill…I can watch this wonder woman and say to myself, “If Paddy can, I can too!”

Considering that part of my blog name, here in WordPress, has something to do with books, I don’t really end up writing too much about books, do I? (Alright! Alright! I know! I know! I don’t end up writing much at all…period!)

Anyway, what better way to rectify this lapse than a book tag?!

There’s a tag that’s all the rage on FB right now where I’m supposed to list ten books that left an impression on me and then tag ten people in return.

My friends Monika Manchanda, Bali Sanghvi, Tripta Roy and Devdan Chaudhuri tagged me. Taking a cue from Monika, I have turned this into a blogpost 😄 What a clever idea, Monsie!

I know I’ve got some plays and poets in the list, but then, this list wouldn’t be complete or true to the person I am, right? Some others that I was loathe to leave out:
*Pride and Prejudice
*To Kill a Mockingbird
*Acts of Faith
*The Kite Runner

I’ll do the tagging on FB, but those if you who stop by, do share some of your favourites with me 😃